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December 6, 2024
Senate GOP sees Hegseth nomination as likely doomed
(The Hill) Pete Hegseth’s nomination to serve as secretary of Defense appears doomed despite his fiery declaration that he’s “not going anywhere,” Republicans on Capitol Hill told The Hill on Thursday. “I think most people do not expect Hegseth to make it,” said one Republican senator. “There’s seven or eight [Republican] votes against him. It’s a matter of time.” “It’s on the death watch,” the senator added.
Go to discussionTrump picks former Georgia Sen. David Perdue for U.S. ambassador to China
(NBC News) President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that former Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., had agreed to be nominated to be the next U.S. ambassador to China. “As a Fortune 500 CEO, who had a 40-year International business career, and served in the U.S. Senate, David brings valuable expertise to help build our relationship with China,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform, noting that Perdue has lived in Singapore and Hong Kong and spent much of his career working in China and elsewhere in Asia.
Go to discussionDirect quotes from Pete Hegseth's book regarding women in the military
"There are examples in history of women in combat roles. But one is hard pressed to find many outside of religious or mythical settings that have anything close to a positive military outcome." ... "If you train a group of men to treat women equally on the battlefield then you will be hard pressed to ask them to treat women differently at home." ... "I'm going to say something politically incorrect that is perfectly commonsensical observation. Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bike. We need mom's, but not in the military, especially in combat units." ...
Go to discussionElon Musk Spent Over $250 Million to Help Elect Trump
(New York Times) Elon Musk, the world's richest man, spent over a quarter of a billion dollars in the final months of this year's election to help Donald J. Trump win the presidency, federal filings revealed on Thursday. ... The sum is a fraction of Mr. Musk's wealth. But it is nonetheless a staggering amount from a single donor, who poured the cash into allied groups and is now playing a role in helping shape the next administration.
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I had a front-row seat to Pam Bondi's messy stint as attorney general
(Scott Maxwell/Tampa Bay Times) I still remember the night Pam Bondi called me, desperate for help. It was a Saturday night in 2010, and Bondi was getting ready to go on national TV to join Geraldo Rivera for a discussion about a string of wrongful convictions in Florida. Rivera knew that a discredited “expert” had already been exposed for using junk science and bogus testimony to improperly put three Brevard County men behind bars for decades and that the same fraudster was suspected of having done the same in other cases. So the TV host wanted to know whether any Florida official had the courage to reopen all the cases and see if others had been wrongfully convicted. Bondi claimed she wanted to be that person.
Go to discussionSenior Biden aide commits to giving Ukraine avalanche of military assistance
(The Guardian) The White House has gamed out a last-minute strategy to bolster Ukraine’s war position that involves an avalanche of military assistance and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a background briefing from a National Security Council spokesperson. National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with the head of the office of the Ukrainian president Andriy Yermak for more than an hour on Thursday, committing to provide Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January, according to the briefing shared with the Guardian.
Go to discussionTrump names 2 officials to lead immigration enforcement drive
(Axios) President-elect Trump on Thursday night nominated former U.S. Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott to lead Customs and Border Protection, and he picked Immigration and Customs Enforcement veteran Caleb Vitello to serve as acting ICE director. They're likely to play a crucial role in helping Trump deliver his hard-line immigration policies that include a pledge to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
Go to discussionWho Will Check the Supreme Court That Should Be Checking Trump?
(Brennan Center for Justice) In the past two years, ProPublica and other news outlets have revealed startling misconduct. Justice Clarence Thomas for years had his lifestyle secretly subsidized by billionaire Harlan Crow. The billionaire provided lavish vacations, paid for the education of Thomas’s surrogate son, and even bought and renovated the justice’s mother’s house (with her living in it). If this happened with state legislators in Albany or Sacramento, we’d call it corruption.
Go to discussionJohn Fetterman says Hunter Biden, Trump both deserve pardons after 'politically motivated' trials
(NBC News) Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said Thursday that the federal cases against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and the New York hush money case against President-elect Donald Trump were both “politically motivated” and deserving of pardons.
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